The present invention relates to an apparatus to remove fluid that drains or spills onto the floor during surgery.
During surgery waste fluids of various types find their way to the floor of the operating room. For example, during arthroscopic surgery sterile fluid (e.g., saline) is supplied to the surgical site. This fluid, if permitted to drain uncontrolled to the floor, presents an additional hazard.
A prior art approach toward solving this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,679,590 and 4,729,404. These patents disclose a rubber mat to be placed beneath a surgical site in sealed engagement with the floor. The top surface of the mat is configured as multiple inverted pyramidal elements configured to collect fluid and direct it to a drain hole on the bottom side of the mat. The bottom side of the mat is provided with flow channels that become sealed to the floor and converge to a common suction port adapted for connection to a source of suction that is commonly available at wall-mounted suction ports in surgical operating rooms. The suction delivers the recovered fluid to a canister for disposal.
The suction mat arrangement described above appear to not be able to drain the rather significant amount of fluid that falls to the floor beyond the mat periphery. During arthroscopic surgery the sterile fluid delivered to the surgical side is often delivered at relatively high pressures, thereby making it difficult, if not impossible, for surgical personnel to direct the fluid so that, after flowing from the surgical site, it falls on the suction mat.
There are commercially available vacuum cleaners with movable suction heads adapted to draw liquid from floors toward a waste collection chamber. These devices, however, are not suitable for surgical environments for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the vacuum cleaner suction head must be manipulated by hand in order to be positioned at various spillage locations on the floor. Since the hands of operating room personnel are otherwise occupied during a surgical procedure, the use of a commercial vacuum cleaner would require additional personnel, thereby adding to the already high cost of surgery. Moreover, commercially available vacuum cleaners have built-in vacuum sources that are extremely noisy, thereby rendering communication between the surgeon and nurses difficult at best. It would be far more desirable to use a low level suction source (e.g., on the order of 300 millimeters of mercury below atmosphere pressure) such as is commonly available at a wall port in operating rooms; however, suction heads employed with commercial vacuum cleaners are incapable of operating at such low pressures.
Finally, the fluids that spill onto the floor during a surgical procedure are likely to be or become contaminated. Commercially available vacuum cleaner heads for liquids are not designed to be disposable after use and, accordingly, would become contaminated and present a health hazard.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,032,184 and 5,014,389 (Ogilvie et al.) is disclosed a method and apparatus having a suction head for use in removing waste fluids from surgical operating room floors. The apparatus has a planar, low-friction bottom surface adapted to slide along the floor in response to translational forces applied by the foot of a surgeon, nurse or other surgery personnel. Flow channels recessed in the bottom surface extend from the periphery of the suction head to the mouth of a common suction port adapted for connection by flexible tubing to a waste fluid collection container or canister. The canister is also connected by means of a hose to a wall mounted suction port providing a negative low pressure on the order of 300 millimeters of mercury below atmospheric pressure. In the preferred embodiment, the suction head is a thin one-piece molded plate, preferably of resilient plastic material having a heat distortion temperature less than 270.degree. F., so as to be sufficiently inexpensive to be discarded after each surgical procedure. The common suction port is defined as a tubular hose fitting extending upwardly from the top surface of the plate. Multiple support ribs extend along the top surface from the hose fitting to the suction head periphery in juxtaposition with respective flow channels to reinforce the flow channels against collapse and flow blockage.
Unlike the Ogilvie device, in the present invention, the barbed fitting exists the device at the side, so as to minimize a potential trip hazard in a surgical environmental which is typically encumbered with several fluid, electrical, and other lines.
Other patents showing suction devices and/or floor drainers include U.S. Pat. No. 2,966,694 (C. L. Brown, Jr.), U.S. Pat. No. 2,816,664 (R. H. Haynes), U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,171 (R. R. Candor et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,569 (Petersen), U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,948 (Chauvier et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,370 (Worwag).